Chelsea are looking to advance towards their sixth League Cup trophy, but Wednesday's quarter-final match against Bournemouth at Stamford Bridge won't be easy at all for the Blues. The two teams have already met this season in the Premier League and Chelsea won 2-0 at Stamford Bridge in September with goals from Pedro and Eden Hazard. However, last season the Cherries pulled off a spectacular 3-0 victory at Chelsea, with goals from Callum Wilson, Junior Stanislas and Nahan Ake. The two sides have met at the same stage of the League Cup last season and Chelsea won that match 2-1 thanks to a stoppage-time goal scored by Alvaro Morata.
Chelsea have recovered well from their surprising 2-1 Premier League defeat at Wolves at the start of December, they bounced back with consecutive league wins over Manchester City and Brighton, either side of an entertaining 2-2 draw with MOL Vidi in the Europa League. The Blues have dropped to fourth place in the Premier League table and that is their main focus at the moment, but manager Maurizio Sarri would surely desire to go all the way in the League Cup. Victor Moses, Gary Cahill, Alvaro Morata and Eden Hazard are all injury concerns for the home side ahead of this match.
Bournemouth had a great start to the season, with just two defeats in their first thirteen matches in all competitions, but now they are going through a very long dry spell. They have lost six of their last seven matches and they have not scored any goals in the last two games. Last week the Cherries lost 2-0 at Wolves and the week before they got hammered 4-0 at home by Chelsea. They have dropped to 11th place in the league table, so the League Cup might not be their biggest concern at the moment. However, manager Eddie Howe will hope to restore some pride and confidence in his players, and a good result against Chelsea would surely help. Adam Smith, Lewis Cook and Dan Gosling are injured and won't be in the squad for this match.
Probable line-ups:
Chelsea: Arrizabalaga - Zappacosta, Cahill, Christensen, Emerson - Loftus-Cheek, Fabregas, Barkley - Pedro, Giroud, Willian
Bournemouth: Boruc - Francis, S. Cook, Ake, Rico - Stanislas, Lerma, Surman, Pugh - Mousset - Defoe
My prediction: Chelsea to win 2-1, the Cherries will surely put up a good fight but the Blues should edge past.
Here are the odds for the match at Bet365:
Chelsea win - 1.30
Draw - 6.00
Bournemouth win - 11.00
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Comments (1)
sharpe
12/23/18, 02:12:57 PM
Not an upset in this one of course despite that Chelsea won the game by a single goal, probably they should of score more than once but anyway. It's funny when...
Not an upset in this one of course despite that Chelsea won the game by a single goal, probably they should of score more than once but anyway. It's funny when we see who's still in this tournament, the half of the teams from big 6 of the PL plus the Burton side who done just great reaching the semis and I guess any of the other 3 would want them as an opponent at the semis...so lets see who'll have that luck.
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